Stop Saying, "Homeless"

Today was awesome.  Almost the whole day was a testimony from a man here named Wes.(don't quote me on this, but I think his last name is Anderson?).  He is a man who grew up as an abused child, and whose parents divorced when he was at a young age.  Through high school he tried to get into the NHL, and almost made it, but broke his knee when he was 19 and that ended his career.

For the next ten years he got married, had a son, seperated, got back together, and got divorced finally when he was 28.  His wife left telling him that he would never amount to anything, and he believed her.  He contemplated suicide many times, as he had had the same job for almost 10 years and gone nowhere(he was in marketing). 

Then they started a new project at work and he was put in charge for something, and it was up to him to come up with a business plan(which he had never done before).  Long story short, he became a millionaire in less than a year.  He was good friends with Bill Gates.  He went to dinner with movie actors.  He flew to Paris on the weekends just cuz.  He basically had everything THE WORLD could offer.  Literally.  He paid 40,000 cash for a lexus cuz he really wanted it, then sold it a couple weeks later cuz he though it smelled funny.

I think you get the picture.

When he was 45 he became a christian.  And a couple years later, God told him very specifically to sell all his belongings, give away all his money, and live on the street.  So he did.  Obviously, not that easily.  He told us quite a few stories about him trying to get out of it, but how the conviction from God never ever left no matter what he did, so about a year after getting the conviction he actually did it.  All he had was a really really old beater car to store his stuff in.  He spent a year on the streets living with homeless people(he told us to stop saying homeless by the way, because he finds it an insult as they are just as much regular people as we are, and when we say that about someone we instantly think less of them).  He has countless countless stories about miracles he witnessed and relationships he built. 

Wes was friends with homeless people.  He didn't minister to them, he didn't preach to them.  He was just their friend.  That being said, they all knew he was a christian, because they could tell by how he lived day to day, and because they knew he chose to live with them.  He talked about not trying to force Jesus on people, but just remembering that every time you treat someone as Jesus would treat them, you plant a seed in that person that God goes crazy on.  He would not stop emphasizing that he never had to tell anyone he was a christian, and never once did he preach to these people(unless they asked questions obviously), he simply walked the walk that Jesus did while he was on earth.

Then he met a lady named Maureen, who had the same passion as him for people, and they now run a farm in northern ontario where they sort of foster people from the streets.  They have 1-4 people living on their farm at all times who live with them for months-and sometimes even years at a time.  They don't preach to them, and they don't force God on them.  They just love them, because that's all God needs us to do. 

Just.  Love.  People.

This excites me, because they're going to take us out to do these sort of things for missions in Toronto( by the way, they don't call it missions, because they feel like that makes it a seperate part of our lives even though our every single second of life is supposed to be ministry to others just by living).  And I have always felt convicted that we just need to care about people and stop preaching to them.

So I'm excited to love people and trust that God has the rest under control :).

Then we were told we're going to Japan and Thailand for outreach.  So that's pretty freakin awesome!!

But I have to help lead worship tomorrow so I'm going to bed because I have to be up at 6 and it is now 11.  I love you all.  See you tomorrow :)

*I paraphrased what was actually about 4 hours worth of talking from Wes and Maureen just so you know.*